On Fudge and Frustration

A wise friend who is a writer and cook herself recently suggested to me that I write more about the relationship between writing and cooking. I have been mulling this over. It is true that many of the writers I know are also passionate cooks, but I also know many fine writers whose kitchens are repositories for reams of take-out menus and whose refrigerators contain the proverbial shriveled lemon and bottle of champagne.

So I guess, as is generally best, I should rein in my focus and write about how writing and cooking are related for me. I suspect that other writers like me, who write in fits and starts, and have a hard time jumping in, and can lose track of time altogether when on a tear, may cook for some of the same reasons.

Nothing is ever really finished when you write. I have typed the last word of an essay after hours and hours of editing and tweaking and revising, and breathed an immense sigh of relief, felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment, and yes, completion, and a mere 24 hours later--or twenty years later--looked at the same essay and felt profound chagrin at the words on the page.

We change every instant. Our molecules are constantly replacing themselves, to say nothing of our life experience, sensibilities and circumstances. So it makes perfect sense that our take on what we create changes, too, and I imagine most people who have ever set their thoughts down on paper for the purpose of constructing a finished piece of work at some point after the fact have regret for at least a word or two.

This is fine, to be expected, but it makes the endeavor itself an exercise in futility. Even after publication, there is no set in stone, no finished product in the writer's eye. And then, there is looming, constantly, in the moment of completion, the next idea, words, sentence, project down the line. It's enough to make a person, well, take to the kitchen.

When I was in graduate school, I lived with an old friend who is also a writer. She is not the kind of writer I am. She is much more diligent, disciplined, regimented. She works more slowly and methodically than I do; she is a perfectionist who worries every word. When she couldn't take it for one more second--the lack of completion--she went for a run. Or other things, too, but generally active pursuits that removed her from the physical space of writing, and gave her a new environment with which to engage. To her dismay, I cooked.

When a daunting assignment loomed, for school or for work, I would inevitably storm out of my room at some point headed for our tiny galley kitchen, little more than a demi-fridge and oven centered by a sink. Often, because it required precise measurements and technique, I made fudge, not fake fudge--marshmallow fluff stirred into melted Hershey bars or some such--but The Joy of Cooking's Fudge Cockaigne: real, old-fashioned, candy-thermometer-requiring fudge. Even in the height of summer.

It must be said, in defense of my roommate, who ultimately banned both the fudge and its making from our apartment, that I am not actually a big fan of fudge. My roommate, who has a sweet tooth, was. Is. So after a few weeks during which I was pushing forward on my thesis and the fudge production became untenable, it was forbidden. And although I wrung my hands a bit, I couldn't deny that the security guard who sat in the lobby of our building and had a sweet tooth to rival my roommate's had held up his arms in the shape of a giant X the last time I had approached with a pan.

I can't remember what I turned to next; it may have been omelets, which require not precise measurements, per se, but a perfecting of technique before improvisation should be introduced. Regardless, my point is this: If you have a task at hand and you are stalled, and you are running in circles in your own head and you don't like to run outside (which is far healthier, I admit), I suggest a batch of fudge. Not more than one, or possibly two, as it is all too easy to let this sort of cure get out of hand. But sometimes, after the sugar has boiled, the mixture set nicely on the windowsill, the mind is rested, too, and the work can actually begin.